I always wanted to be an artist, went to art school, graduated and made good money and satisfied with freelance fine art jobs. Made the mistake of dropping all the freelance gigs for a steady and extremely well-paying advertising job. Absolutely wasnt worth the money and stress and drama.

However, I made enough money from two horrible years that cost me all my connections and motivations from the fine art field I had been building up prior to taking that corporate hell of a job. I sacrificed something I had been building in a field that doesn't have a lot of i s and I gave up the connections that could have put me towards the path I had dreamed of going since I was a child. I threw opportunity and incredible offers away in lieu of stability.

Biggest mistake I ever made, so I thought, because I eventually realized that the life of a painter is not for me. Nor is that of advertising. I had great experiences and learned so much about so many aspects of the art world, encompassing fine arts and the business of making and marketing the product, and the big business of high-end advertising and how very little artistic talent is involved with either of the two.

I wanted to be a painter most of my life and I really do possess a talent for it. But to pursue it as a career involves a lot of ass kissing and compromising and reproduction and pretension. The people who want to buy your creations don't generally give a fuck about the creation and neither does any other party involved with the sale and marketing of your creation. It seems pretty obvious that one shouldn't expect anything else in a capitalist society, but it is sort of discouraging to realize that the only person who cares about your artistic endeavors is one who can either profit from them or boast about the acquisition of them.

So now I work customer service and own a store and love it. Imagine working advertising or contract with an art gallery. As a cashier in a sketchy neighborhood, people always try to get over on a few dollars here and there. No problem. If I don't like them, I throw them out.

Compare that to working as an artist or an ad agency studio drkne who constantly deals with coworkers trying tk get over on you and the money at stake is in the thousands or hundreds of thousands. These people are the worst kinds of people to deal with and the money is always an issue and it is never worth the stress.

I quit my job at the ad agency after 2 years before which I was making good money as an artist and assistant for several different established artists. I began gelping out in my local bodga and realized that I actually loved customer service on a non-corporate level. I now own a store and I wouldn't rather any other occupation for myself.